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Yarn Arts

My Christmas yarn binge is carrying into the new year with vengeance. Perhaps is the giant spools of cotton and wool staring at me, begging for purpose. Not sure, but I’m feeling mighty nostalgic these days which usually means one thing: Retro Craft Time. This is hen I like to spread out on the couch making stuff from old magazines, usually accompanied by reruns of long forgotten television shows. If you have never hosted your on personal Retro Craft Time (< and yes, the occasion warrants title case) I suggest starting with the Golden Girls and a project from an early ’80s McCall’s A cocktail couldn’t hurt either. Or chocolate. Your call.

Pink and green y’all. Pink and green!

Tell me this does not look like it as ripped from the set of *One Day at a Time.

*Brownie points to me for mentioning One Day at a Time in the course of a craft blog.

For someone who does not knit, yarn has taken over my life. And I love it. Yarn here, yarn there, yarn everywhere. My holiday situation is yarntastic like you have never seen before, but more on that later….

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This two-tone lampshade is rocking my world. Not only is it easy to make, one-of-a-kind, and inexpensive…it’s flattering as all-get-out. FOR REAL. The pink-peach yarn glow makes the light just gorgeous. And they don’t sell this color combination in stores, so, this is a DIY worth taking on. Let’s go!

This is the fun part! You get to play the mad scientist and dye all the yarns all the colors. Alllll of them. I went for a tone-on-tone color scheme here because I can never find that in stores (You ever notice that? You can find multi-color yarn in blue and orange no problem…but red and orange, or blue and green? NEVER. What’s up with that yarn manufacturers? Can’t a girl get some tasteful color variables up in here?

I digress…

For this batch I followed Tulips color guide to make creamsicle (a pale orangey peachy color) and persimmon (deep pink). A little dye and 4oz of water goes a long way!

There are limitless ways to soak your yarn with dye. I started in the jars, but then moved on to the old squirt bottle method. Both work fine, but if you want really deep colors the soaking method would probably work best.

Let the yarn sit for a while. I was impatient and rinsed after a couple of hours, but you could let it go all night. Follow with a good rinse of cold water and tiny bit of detergent. Air dry overnight.

Materials to Make the Lampshade
Two-tone dyed yarn (dry)Tacky tape (don’t be tempted to try this with glue – this tape is MAGICAL)

Trace the entire top edge of the lampshade with the fabric fusion tape, using your fingers to rub it in really well.

Carefully secure the yarn on to the tape and start winding. When you reach the begining, nudge the yarn down a line and circle agin. And again. And agin. You don’t need to cover the entire shade with tape, but if you may find it easier to add a vertical line of tape along teh vertical seam of the shade (but trust me – it’s pretty easy without). When you get the the bottom, add another circle of tape along the edge.

Whamo! Now that’s a lampshade! The color variations are subtle, but believe me, in person it’s a knockout. And the light comes through at night is the most gorgeous way!

If you are a yarn person, this stuff is going to rock your world. Your yarn stash will never be the same!

This post was brought to you by Tulip’s Color Lab yarn dye kits. All opinions expressed are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make this site possible!

No, really. It’s hard to hate something like a napkin ring, but I do, I really do. So imagine the surprise I felt when I was setting the table and a wave of inferiority rushed over me. I NEED POMPOMS. I NEED POMPOMS. I NEED POMPOM NAPKIN RINGS!

…and thus, a new chapter began. Much like the last chapter, it was filled with pompoms and tassels and yarns of yore.

And by yore, I mean the largest yarn stash ever known to someone who does not knit.

I have been on a tassel making kick for months, making small batches at night in front of the TV. They pile up in plastic bags in my craft room waiting for the day (probably any day now) when I turn them into knob bobbles. If you don’t know how to make yarn tassels, check in over there first. Get your tassel on!

The keys here is to leave the hanging strings long enough to tie them together (I also tied on a couple extra long strands for good measure). Then I braided the strands together and tied it off in a loop. It’s a little messy, but really, who is counting on neatness here?!

Confession: Those aren’t even real napkins. I just buy a yard of 100% cotton fabric, rip it in quarters, wash in hot water with baking soda and towels (puffs up the fibers), and let the edges fray. Nice thing about napkin rings is you don’t have to iron. Hayo!
Another confession: These babies stopped being napkin rings 20 minutes after these photos were taken and are now hanging on a Christmas tree. More on that next week!

My recent yarn kick turned into a tassel kick which has now turned into a knob bobble kick. Now I want all of my door knobs to have jewelry. Yarn jewelry. Also, I’m sorta tired of wreaths and stuff so I’m thinking knob bobbles are a home trend I can get behind. Also, it’s fun to say – knob bobbles. Sounds like pirate speak. Arrr me hearties, hard to starboard and yarn tassel me knob bobbles.

I’m guessing everyone learned to make yarn tassle bookmarks for Mother’s Day as a kid, amiright? Some of us even took it a step farther and learned to make yarn dolls (overachievers!) but for those who need a refresher, here it is.
Pro tip: Things get much more exciting when you mix yarn with twine and string and such.

So that’s it. You just wind the yarn around the book about 50 times, tie it off, snip it in half, and bam – TWO tassels. You will feel so accomplished you’ll want to make a bunch more.

…and that’s good because if you make a few, you can tie them on to an old bracelet, wrap some more yearn around the bracelet, and make yourself a knob bobble.

…Or not. Leave your knobs naked. See if I care. You just see.

Or you can tie off solo tassels on odd knobs around the house.
Like this.

And this one looks like one of the objects that turned into French people in Beauty and the Beast.

Ouuuu. Fancy!

Warning: these are addictive.

They are great no-thinking-required craft to make while watching a movie or on long car trips. My plan is to let the tassels pile up for a few months then makes them into to knob bobbles for Christmas — a nifty little gift on its own, or tied onto the front of a package. Obviously, I see jungle bells in the mix. Stay tunned!

I don’t know about you, but woven wall hangings were all the rage when it was a kid. It was awesome. Somewhere along the line they went out of fashion and up until recently you’d find them dime-a-dozen at thrift stores. Now they are hot again and Mrs. Roper has her revenge!

For those of us who were not smart enough to see this cyclical resurrection coming, we must make our own wall hangings. I’m not exactly a macrame expert, so I rely on white cotton yarn and a whole lot of little jars of dye to generate results.

The bad news is my house is now overflowing with excess bundles of custom dyed yarn. The good news is, for about $10 and precious little effort, you can make your own nifty wall hanging. Catch my tutorial over on Ilovetocreate.com!

I already crochet and suck at it. Do I really need one more thing to suck at?

It will allow me to make custom sweaters for my cat. My cat already hates me and the last thing she needs is a legit excuse to get angry and pee on stuff.

It will distract me from learning to hand quilt. And macramé. And install faucets.And other stuff.

I will do it and I will get addicted and the yarn will suck all the moistness out of my hands and one day I will wake up and see a hand coming out of my sleeve and think OH CRAP, THE CRYPT KEEPER IS HERE!

I can make other stuff with yarn. Like, this…

As I mentioned last week, I’m not big on knitting. And I don’t crochet much either. But for whatever reason I can’t help but stroll through the yarn aisle every time I go to a craft store. It calls my name. I can’t turn away. On rare, rare occasions, I let myself buy something too. This time it was red and pink and orange. It came home with me and said, GURL, you need to make something with me. What’s it going to be? – A scarf? – A hat? – Some badass granny square potholders?

I said, No Gurl, today we are making yarn hearts.

It doesn’t get much easier than this.

This is about the easiest, laziest, fool-proof project on the planet. In fact, I am ripping this idea off a daycare craft I made in 1983 (shout out to all my peoples at Palisades Preschool!) as Christmas ornaments using bits of acrylic scrap yarn and paste made from flour and water. They were supposed to be stars but came out looking like spaghetti – that’s the charm, right? Preschool art. It’s open for interpretation.

The only problem was that after the spaghetti stars dried and went home looking pretty, they fell apart and flopped over on the tree. I think the paste might have reconstituted when put in contact with the moist tree or something. That said, I am swapping out the old fashioned glue for Mod Podge – I trust it will last a long time. Did you see what it did to my Eastereggs? Twelve years and counting!

Note: Mix the glue solution in a disposable cup with a plastic fork, or similar.

Also note: Cotton yarn, or yarn that is at least partly made from natural fibers, will absorb the glue and work a little better for this project. Straight acrylic yarn works too but I find it does not stiffen quite as nice as the cotton stuff.

If you have never worked with Mod Podge before, don’t worry, it’s pretty much works the same as regular liquid white glue but it dries to a sort of plastic-like finish. I used gloss finish because that’s what I have on hand, but I would have probably used the matte finish if I had been working with a nice wooly yarn.

The heart on the far right was made with one yard of yarn and it dried in about 8 hours. The one in the middle was made with four yards of yarn and still has some damp spots afterthree days of drying! It also has some obvious looking glue flakes that don’t show up in these photos – meh, not a big deal, they are easy enough to rub off with my fingers, but I would urge you, if you are going to pile up the yarn thick and such, wring it out thoroughly before you shape it into a heart.

The Valentine tree is coming along bit-by-bit. I can’t wait to show you guys the finished result!